


Lightning

by Eglantine



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Les Miserables Reverse Bang, Mary Shelley - Freeform, Science Experiments, being nerds, running around in the rain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-03-31 23:55:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3998020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eglantine/pseuds/Eglantine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joly, Combeferre, and Jean Prouvaire perform an experiment with electricity. </p><p>For the Les Miserables Reverse Bang.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lightning

**Author's Note:**

> For the Les Miserables Reverse Bang, from PilferingApples' amazing piece [here!](http://pilferingapples.tumblr.com/post/119829036569/my-first-piece-for-the-reverse-big-bang-look-i)

The first stroke of thunder was so loud, it jolted an instinctive, appreciative _ohhh_ from the gentlemen gathered in Café Musain. 

At the second, perfectly timed to punctuate the conclusion of a very convoluted point he had been making, Courfeyrac threw up his hands in delight and cried, “You see! The dearly departed Danton agrees with me. Jove the Thunderer speaks.” 

“Jove!” Grantaire cried. “You would compare the voice that made a priggish Artesian lawyer quake with that of the god who shakes the heavens? One splits the skies, the other merely an assembly.”

“Merely?” Enjolras echoed with a flash of irritation. “To none of the actions of the men of the revolution can we assign the word _merely_.” 

Before this could trigger true anger on either part, Bossuet swooped in with a fresh glass of wine, which he offered to Grantaire, while Courfeyrac deftly turned Enjolras aside with a question about a pamphlet they hoped to have printed. 

“I just hope it breaks this heat,” Joly said to the rest of the room. “I will trade a wet trip home for some relief on that front, quite gladly.” 

Joly glanced around for Combeferre, to whom it usually fell to smooth over such sparks of temper, and saw that he was off on the other side of the room, seemingly in a world of his own. He had dragged a chair over to the window and was watching the storm. Joly wandered over to stand at his side. A flash of lightning lit the sky, glinted off of Combeferre’s spectacles; moments later, a rolling crash of thunder.

“Have you read Ampère yet?” Combeferre asked eagerly, without further greeting or preamble. 

“Er,” Joly said. 

“You must!” Combeferre said with the enthusiasm that only a new scientific treatise or hopeful-looking election results could draw from him. “It shall bridge our great divide at last.”

“And what divide is that?” Joly asked. He could think of no point of philosophy in which he and Combeferre were not at least mostly in accord— unless—

“He proposes to unify electricity and magnetism— he suggests that both are comprised of the same particle, that their properties can be explained— and indeed he does explain them, most convincingly— by the same mathematical principles.”

“Well, this is no surprise at all, in my opinion,” Joly said. “Think of that novel by Madame Shelley. She was inspired by the experiments of Aldini, they say, and if he was able to make a dead man open his eyes using electricity— and if electricity and magnetism are the same force— why then, that only seems to affirm my beliefs about the healthful properties of magnets, does it not?”

“Of _course_ you have read Shelley, but not Ampère.” 

Their friendship was not yet what one would call intimate. They were cautious still, keeping to jokes they had told before, jibes they had tested and knew for certain would neither shock nor offend… like the magnets. Combeferre’s mild aspect concealed a sharpness that startled people— seemed, sometimes, to startle Combeferre himself, when what seemed to him a logical conclusion to others sounded cutting. But in this case, the exasperation in his tone was entirely balanced with playfulness. Even so, Joly felt compelled to state (not entirely honestly) in his own defense, “Musichetta left it, then I was ill and it happened to be to hand. And if that’s your only response,” he added with a grin, “then I will take it to mean that you are forced to concede the correctness of my views. And I shall be happy to lend you my magnets at any time.” 

“But you have read Shelley, Combeferre, haven’t you?” Jean Prouvaire piped up suddenly. Joly looked over at him, startled— he hadn’t noticed Prouvaire breaking away from the rest of the group to join them near the window. If he did not know Combeferre well, he knew Prouvaire far less, but could not help but be intrigued by someone whose perspective on the world was plainly so different from his own… beginning with their highly divergent views on which colors looked well together. 

“Oh, yes, of course,” Combeferre said, though Joly didn’t particularly think there was anything _of course_ about it. He strained to imagine Combeferre sitting up at night reading an Englishwoman’s fantastical story, just as he was faintly surprised every time he ran into Combeferre at the theatre.

“I don’t understand how you have time to read novels _and_ every book about science ever printed,” Joly complained. “Bad eyes are the least you deserve for such appalling industriousness.” 

“You are well read enough in your own areas of interest,” Combeferre said. “You’ve memorized the symptoms to more diseases than most have ever heard of, and though I continue to maintain that your interest in magnets is almost certainly nonsense, you are unquestionably well informed on the subject.” 

“How is it,” Joly asked, turning to Prouvaire, “that he makes a compliment sound so terribly insulting?”

Combeferre flushed and said, with entirely sincere contrition, “It is not meant to, not at all.” 

“I am glad you have read Madame Shelley,” was Prouvaire’s only response. “And I don’t see why you must muddy something as splendid as a thunderstorm with science. Can you not simply see it, and marvel at it?” 

“Why, so I do,” Combeferre said. “And for myself, it is science that allows me to do so.”

“How so?” Prouvaire asked. Bahorel, who had introduced Prouvaire to the group, had a maddening habit of drawing out one’s opinions so that he could immediately contradict them. Prouvaire, apparently, did not share this proclivity, and his curiosity seemed quite genuine. 

“I look at a storm such as this and I think: one hundred years ago, we did not know that lightning was electricity. Two hundred years ago, the leading scientific minds were entirely certain that light had no limit to its speed. What will we know a hundred years from now? Two hundred? Tomorrow?” 

Combeferre lacked Enjolras’s stirring powers of oratory, or Courfeyrac’s frank charisma. He was suited more to the cutting aside, the concise summary, the perfectly pointed closing remark. But now Joly saw that if the time and the topic were right, Combeferre could be set aglow. 

“One hundred years, really?” Prouvaire said. “It seems so very modern. Even the word, _electricity_. Though it comes from the Greek for amber. I don’t know why.” 

Joly and Jean Prouvaire both looked at once to Combeferre, who seemed slightly abashed as he shrugged. “I’m afraid I don’t know, either. But yes, one hundred years. And it was a Frenchman, you know, though the Americans do try to take credit… Franklin and his kite and all that.” 

“Oh, I do know this story!” Prouvaire cried. “The kite and the key and the thunderstorm—”

“Yes, but in fact a Frenchman, Jacques de Romas, beat him to the actual trial of it.”

“It’s a marvel he wasn’t killed,” Joly said. “Though one can survive a lightning strike. I suppose one could even be brought back to life, if Galvani’s experiments were correct.” 

Prouvaire’s expression was thoughtful. “If you could create life— if you discovered it, like in Madame Shelley’s book— would you do it?”

“Not I,” Combeferre said without hesitation. “I would never wish to be the man to discover such a thing. I have no ambitions at all in that respect. I am happy to enjoy the discoveries of others.” 

“That can’t be true,” Joly said. “Surely you would be happy to discover cures for diseases, prove me wrong about magnets…” 

“Well yes, of course,” Combeferre said. “But so that the disease might be cured, not for the sake of getting there first. I would like such questions to be answered, and I shall work to answer them, but I would be perfectly pleased to be beaten to all of them, so long as the answers are found. Though I confess I would take some personal satisfaction from the question of the magnets, it’s true,” he added in that sly tone that left those who did not know him well uncertain as to whether or not he’d just made a joke. Joly was a bit proud that he could now tell the difference.

“We should reproduce the experiment,” Prouvaire said suddenly.

“Which? Galvani’s?” Joly asked with alarm. “I don’t particularly fancy locating a dead body at this hour of the night.”

“No, no,” Prouvaire said. “The kite. The key. For the glory of the forgotten Monsieur de Romas.” 

“Not entirely forgotten,” Joly pointed out. “Not by Combeferre.”

“Yes, but I imagine the list of things Combeferre is the only person to remember would fill several volumes,” Jehan said, in a tone which suggested that this was a perfectly obvious assumption which Joly really should have thought of himself— and Joly didn’t feel much inclined to disagree. 

“To what end?” Combeferre asked. “There’s no need to prove what has been known for a hundred years.” 

“And certainly no need to risk death while doing so,” Joly added.

The look Prouvaire gave them was practically pitying. Joly was beginning to suspect that his impression of Prouvaire as silent and timid was not entirely accurate, though Jehan’s increasing boldness was tempered somewhat by the fact that he still blushed slightly whenever he spoke. Joly had a great deal of sympathy for this, his own fair and freckled complexion habitually betraying the least sense of surprise, embarrassment, or fear. 

“It is not for the purpose of proving anything,” Prouvaire said. “It is for the purpose of _experiencing_ something. Where is Bahorel? He would understand.” 

“I believe he absented himself in favor of fairer company,” Joly said, glancing around. “You will be forced to make do with us.” 

“Experiencing what?” Combeferre said. Joly fully expected him to be dismissive, but he seemed intrigued. 

“Well we cannot know precisely, can we, until it has been experienced.” 

“We’ll catch our deaths,” Joly said. “And though we have been discussing the salutary benefits of electricity, in actual fact, being struck by lightning is a fate I would prefer to avoid. Though I suppose the upside is, only one of those things can possibly happen. A man can only be killed once.”

He fell silent for a moment, with a thoughtful expression, until Combeferre prompted him, “Yes?” 

“Oh— I was only trying to decide whether it would be preferable to die of pneumonia, or by being struck by lightning.”

“Lightning,” Combeferre and Prouvaire said immediately, simultaneously. And that settled that, it seemed. 

“Shall we invite the others along?” Combeferre asked.

Joly glanced at Combeferre in surprise, wondering when precisely they had actually agreed to this. But at Prouvaire’s look of evident delight, he found he could not bring himself to protest— nor, he found, did he want to. 

Each took a moment to consider Combeferre’s question. Joly glanced around the room. Apart from Bahorel’s departure to the arms of his mistress, there had been a small exodus just before Grantaire and Enjolras’s hastily forestalled quarrel, with those who realized that waiting out the storm would very likely mean waiting all night deciding to make a run for it, and those who were untroubled by the prospect saying put. The former had proved by far the smaller group, with Feuilly one member. 

Enjolras and Courfeyrac, tucked in a corner, were hunched low over a table, their heads together, one or the other occasionally brandishing one of the handwritten pages that seemed to be the subject of their conference. They did not appear much interested in being disturbed, and indeed, given their serious expressions, Joly did not particularly wish to try. 

In the other corner, a rather enthusiastic game of cards was underway, in which Grantaire and Bossuet were both participants. Bossuet, judging by the sound of his incredulous laughter, seemed to already be losing badly. Joly hesitated. 

Combeferre had evidently followed Joly’s gaze across the room, for he said, “Well, we can’t ask Lesgle. With his luck, one of us will certainly be struck by lightning.”

Joly couldn’t help but laugh. “Hardly the kind of scientific opinion I would expect from you, sir.”

“Far be it from me to deny a well-documented phenomenon simply because I cannot explain it,” Combeferre said. “Lesgle’s uncanny ill luck is a matter of record. Eventualities that no reasonable man would have cause to expect can be all but guaranteed in his presence.” 

This assertion seemed to be exactly what Prouvaire was hoping to hear. “So you are not one of those men of reason who insists that anything you cannot define is impossible?” 

“I hope I am open to almost anything,” Combeferre said. Prouvaire beamed and Joly muttered, “Except magnets.” 

Another rolling crack of thunder returned their minds to their purpose— or what was apparently now their purpose, though Joly was still not wholly sure how exactly he had been convinced to wander outside in a thunderstorm. But he pulled on his coat and his hat and took up his umbrella just as Combeferre and Prouvaire did the same, and though some of the card players raised their hands in silent farewell, eyes still fixed on the game, no one else troubled them or inquired as the three of them ducked out. 

“Is that— a cape?” Joly couldn’t help but ask as they stepped outside and the stiff wind caught in Prouvaire’s clothing, revealing that his topmost layer was not, in fact, the greatcoat that Joly had naturally taken it to be.

“Oh, yes,” Prouvaire said placidly. 

“—I think I shall never have the temperament for a Romantic,” Joly said. Or the disregard for fashion, he did not add. 

“Perhaps it is infectious,” Combeferre said innocently. “Perhaps you will catch it.”

“Romanticism is not what I fear catching in this weather,” he replied, glancing up at the sky. They were huddled still beneath the overhang in front of the café, none of them yet having mustered the courage to step forth into the rain. It was coming down even harder than the sound of its pounding against the windows and gutters had suggested.

“We will need a kite,” Combeferre pointed out. 

“I live not far from here,” Prouvaire said. “They’re the easiest thing in the world to make, I’m sure I have what we need.” 

“First art, then science,” Joly said. “If only someone could supply some religion, we shall be thoroughly educated.”

Prouvaire said something in a language that Joly did not at all recognize, and at his and Combeferre’s utterly baffled expressions, Prouvaire translated: “ _The voice of Thy thunder was in the heaven: the lightnings lightened the world: the earth trembled and shook._ …it’s from Psalms,” he elaborated when they still seemed bemused. “Religion.” 

“There we are, then,” Joly said. 

* 

Joly decided he really shouldn’t have been surprised that Prouvaire had everything required to build a kite to hand in his surprisingly large flat. The kite was assembled quite quickly, and they then trudged to a nearby square, where there would be enough space to let it fly. Combeferre and Prouvaire had given up the hope of umbrellas, but Joly stubbornly held onto his, fighting against the wind, trying to keep it from flipping inside out. 

As they neared the green, one of them began singing, just audible in the silence after the thunder, over the rain. Joly, huddled beneath his umbrella a few steps behind the other two, could not tell which of them it was. It was a tenor voice so bright and true that Joly was certain at first it had to be Prouvaire— but it was not.

Combeferre sang, “ _Entends-tu la tonnerre? Il roule en approchant…_ ”

“Fabre d’Eglantine!” Prouvaire cried in delight. “It is not for me to claim one life is of greater worth than another— but I confess I cannot blame the revolution for his loss as I do the execution of André Chenier.” 

“That is how I first learned about the revolution,” Combeferre said. “That song.” 

“Is it really?”

He nodded. “My mother would sing it, and I asked one day where it came from, and she told me that a poet wrote it. I liked the song, so I asked her where the poet was, and could we please ask him to make another one. And she told me he’d been killed. Which was, naturally, when my older brother and sister jumped in to provide all the gory details of beheading and such. I didn’t learn what it had all been for until I went to school, and so that was my first impression as a child, thanks to my siblings— bloody men killing poets for no reason.” 

“King Charles would be glad to have your brother and sister as schoolmasters, I’m sure,” Joly said, speeding his pace to fall into step beside them. “Teaching the next generation of the vile crimes of their forefathers.”

“They do not seem to have proved very effective teachers,” Combeferre noted. “Their lessons did not endure.” 

“Why, all the better,” Prouvaire said. “Perhaps that is how it should be: upon coming of age, one must forget everything one has ever learned and discover it all anew. Well,” he amended, already skeptical of his own idea, “Perhaps not _everything_. I would not particularly enjoy having to learn Greek again.” 

“But I cannot disagree with the sentiment,” Combeferre said. 

“So what shall we unlearn tonight?” Joly asked as he began to unwind the string of the kite. 

Combeferre grinned. “A fear of lightning?”

They seemed destined to make little progress on that front: there was a loud crack of thunder, and all three jumped. They exchanged half-sheepish grins—then quite suddenly, Prouvaire was off, his cloak flapping behind him, hands outstretched as if to catch the rain. Combeferre started after him, then turned to beckon for Joly, who laughed and followed. The kite strings were all tangled about him and his umbrella flipped itself inside out and his hat seemed to remain on his head by sheer force of will, his hands busied with trying not to trip over the kite— and by the time he reached Combeferre and Prouvaire he was breathless with laughter. 

“The kite, Doctor Joly,” Prouvaire said officiously, which didn’t help in Joly’s efforts to catch his breath.

“Not a doctor yet,” he managed between giggles, but he gladly handed the kite over, nearly tripping himself as the tail tangled itself around his legs. Prouvaire began unspooling the string. They would hardly need a running start: the wind was tugging already at their overcoats and hats, it would have no trouble at all lifting a kite. 

As Prouvaire held the string, Combeferre took hold of the kite and held it aloft. Joly watched, giddy and terrified, as Combeferre let it go and the wind took it up at once, pulling the string taut and nearly tugging the slender Jean Prouvaire off-balance. But he dug in his heels and let a bit more string spool through his fingers and remained upright. 

“Oh, do _please_ try to avoid dying,” Joly said. Every particle in his body felt bent towards the sky, listening for thunder.

“Well, we all must,” Prouvaire said placidly, and let the kite sail higher. Combeferre hovered at his shoulder. A flash above them, and all of their eyes shot upwards. But Prouvaire must have jerked the string, or perhaps the wind shifted, but quite suddenly the string snapped. Combeferre, the tallest, lunged for the broken-off end, but even he was not tall or quick enough, and they could do nothing but watch helplessly as the kite was borne away in lurching loops. 

“Well,” Combeferre said. “There is a complication Monsieur de Romas did not encounter.” 

Joly squinted after it. “Maybe it will get caught in a tree— oh, no, it’s off… well, it _does_ fly well. We can certainly feel proud of our craftsmanship.” 

“I do, I assure you,” Combeferre said. “I shall boast excessively at our next meeting. I hope you will both back me.”

“Without question,” Joly said; Jean Prouvaire added, “And in detail.” 

“Though if any of us are to have any hope of speaking about anything for the next week, I think we all must get home, and dry,” Combeferre said. He offered his hand to both to shake, very formal, and Joly laughed. “It has been a pleasure experimenting with you, gentlemen.”

Though Prouvaire offered a fire and perhaps the loan of some dry things at his flat, Joly declined— he found, for once, the thought of making his way home in the rain did not trouble him, even given the now-battered state of his umbrella. Part of his mind was insistently reminding him that _you’ll regret this when you wake up tomorrow with a stuffed-up head_ , but the rest was too delighted by the sight of Combeferre with rain streaking his spectacles, by the droplets that gathered on the flyaway wisps of Prouvaire’s fair hair, making a soft, watery halo. He wanted to watch them walk away, Combeferre’s lanky frame bent slightly towards Prouvaire, who was expounding with great animation some point that Joly could not longer quite hear. He wanted, when he saw them next, for them to smile at each other at the memory of the rain and the lightning and how they had each disappeared into the mist, undisturbed by the practicalities of walking to Prouvaire’s flat, of muddy boots, of finding dry shirts that fit. 

He realized the experiment had, after all, been a success: he now understood Jean Prouvaire’s point entirely. 

*

Joly arrived home to find Bossuet, who had evidently made use of his spare key, sprawled across the sofa, asleep. To judge by the state of his trousers, he had spent the evening somehow growing intimately acquainted with a mud puddle. He momentarily awoke at the sound of Joly’s entrance, mumbled something that might have been words, then promptly fell back to sleep.

Joly could never drift off so quickly. Once he had changed into a dry shirt and burrowed into the bed, he lay awake. The rain was still falling, but the sound of the thunder was growing still more distant. _It is someone else’s storm now,_ he thought. And when he woke up, it had cleared away.


End file.
